DeNormand played Ronald Fairon Karyn Kupcinet played Clarissa Smith Torben Meyer played Hugo Emory Parnell played Berke Production The screenplay for the film, based on the novel The Cup and the Sword by American novelist Alice Tisdale Hobart, was written by Casey Robinson, best known for writing most of Bette Davis' best films. Director Henry King had been successfully directing Hollywood films since the 1920s — this film was one of his last. Film composer Hugo Friedhofer (who had won an Oscar for Best Music for 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives) wrote the music; three-time Oscar-winner Winton C. Hoch was the cinematographer. The production company was Vintage Productions, in partnership with Universal–International Pictures. The film was Universal's biggest budgeted production at the time with a budget of $3 to $3.5 million. Production dates for the film were September 2, 1958 through early November, 1958. The production was filmed in Technicolor, with monoaural sound. Napa Valley locations used for filming were: Beaulieu Vineyard Beringer Vineyards Cella Vineyards Charles Krug Vineyards Christian Brothers Vineyards Draper Vineyard, now called La Perla and part of Spring Mountain Vineyard Inglenook Winery Italian Swiss Colony Vineyards Louis M. Martini Vineyards Mayacamas Vineyards Paul Masson Mountain Winery Schramsberg Vineyards Sebastiani Vineyards Stags' Leap Winery (name actually mentioned as part of the plot) Sucram Ranch Local residents of the Napa Valley were used as extras in some scenes, and the stars were taught proper vineyard procedures by locals — a difficulty for left-handed Rock Hudson, for whom a left-handed teacher had to be found to demonstrate the proper way to attach a bud from one plant to the root of another, a scene important to the plot at the end of the film. The New York opening of the film was June 26, 1959; the Los Angeles opening was July 8, 1959. Critical reception The film was not well-received. Variety wrote on January 1, 1959, "This film is almost completely lacking in dramatic cohesion. It is verbose and contradictory, and its complex plot relationships from Alice Tisdale Hobart's novel, "The Cup and the Sword" begin with confusion and end in tedium." The New York Times wrote on June 27, 1959. "In describing the intramural trials and tribulations besetting a wealthy clan of California vineyard owners, under the title "This Earth Is Mine," Universal-International has come up with an ambitious family saga as handsome as it is